The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 5, No. 6. (May, 1900), pp. 829-837.
Book Review by: Lester F[rank]. Ward.
The Theory of the Leisure Class. An Economic Study in the Evolution of 
Institutions. By THORSTEIN VEBLEN. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1899. Pp. viii + 
400, 8vo),
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[829] A late critic of a book has the same advantage as the critic of an old 
painting. He need not have any ideas of his own. He has learned what the proper 
thing to say is, and he has nothing to do but to say it. In the present case the 
proper thing to do is to condemn the book and call it pessimistic, even 
"cynical." Pessimism now means: looking facts in the face; seeing things as they 
are; calling a spade a spade. Anyone who does this is deserving of censure as 
disturbing the order of things. If there is one thing that the world does not 
want, it is truth. Truth is a medicine that must be administered in sugar-coated 
pills. A very little of it reacts upon the public system and will not go down. 
This is no modern fact. It has always been so. It is what they used to burn 
folks for. Nowadays they merely put their books on a sort of moral index 
librorum expurgandorum.
The trouble with this book is that it contains too much truth. It also suggests 
a great deal of truth that it does not contain, and this is quite as bad as to 
tell the truth outright. Galileo and Servetus were not persecuted for what they 
said, but for the deductions that their persecutors made from what they said. 
The reviewers of this book base their criticisms almost entirely on the 
conclusions they themselves draw from what is said in it, and scarcely at all on 
what it actually says. They forget entirely that it is, as its secondary title 
states, "an economic study in the evolution of institutions," and they assume in 
all gratuity that it is an attack on existing institutions. That is a pure 
deduction, but one for which there is no warrant in the book. Someone has said 
that the law of gravitation would be attacked if it was suspected of 
jeopardizing human interests. The history of man is exactly paralleled in the 
history of plants and animals, but no one has inveighed against the facts of 
biology, because they concern sub-human creatures. Darwin was soundly belabored 
for supposed consequences to man of his facts, but only for such.
[830] Now, no truth has come more clearly forth from the most thorough study of 
organic evolution than that its whole method is essentially wasteful. Darwin 
showed this; Huxley multiplied examples of it; and even Herbert Spencer, who 
would have man imitate nature in all things, has supplied some of the most 
striking examples of the prodigality of nature. In describing this prodigality 
naturalists have not been suspected of condemning the habits and instincts of 
the birds and animals, of the fishes of the sea and the infusorians of the pool. 
But when an economist of a strictly scientific habit of mind investigates the 
history of the human species, discovers that human evolution, like organic 
evolution, is the outcome of the rhythmic action of great cosmic forces, one set 
of which is centrifugal and destructive, and tells us how these wasteful 
processes go on in society in cooperation with the conservative ones, he arouses 
hostility and is regarded as dangerous. And all because the specimens he has to 
investigate are men. In fact, the book is a mirror in which we can all see 
ourselves. It is more. It is a telescope through which we can see our ancestors, 
and when, all at one view, we see all the generations of our pedigree down to 
and including ourselves, we perceive how little difference there is, and the 
image takes on a rather ugly aspect. That is why it offends. This tracing back 
institutions, customs, habits, ideas, beliefs, and feelings to their primitive 
sources in barbarism and savagery, and showing what is the real basis of them, 
is not pleasant occupation for people who are proud of their ancestors, for many 
such have nothing but ancestors to be proud of.
It is perfectly legitimate to endeavor to show that the facts are not as stated, 
but a critic who does this must proceed scientifically. He must not waste his 
efforts in showing that there are other facts that have an opposite tendency. He 
must remember what the author of the book has set himself as a task; and in this 
case it must be admitted that he has clung tenaciously to this one field, 
resisting the temptation, which, as anyone can see, must have been strong, to go 
out of that field and deal with the opposite class of facts. There is no doubt 
that he could write as strong and able a book on the "instinct of workmanship" 
as he has written on the "instinct of sportsmanship," and it is to be hoped that 
he may do so. But in dealing with this book the critic has no right to complain 
that it is not a book on some other subject than the one chosen. As a matter of 
fact, there is much gained in dealing with one aspect of human evolution at a 
time. Very few writers are able to keep the different factors distinct. It 
requires a clear head.
[831] Nearly all the treatment we find of such highly complex subjects is 
vitiated by the perpetual mixing up of the fields of inquiry, until all is 
muddle and Wirrwarr. Here for once we have a single subject clearly handled and 
consistently adhered to, at the risk even of giving offense to those whose 
suggestibility is so strong that they cannot keep other subjects out of view.
It may be said that the author ought at least to have shown how this very 
leisure class, and solely by virtue of its leisure, has made the greater part 
certainly of the earlier scientific discoveries, and worked out some of the most 
important problems; that even modern science owes as much to this class as to 
all other classes combined, as shown by de Candolle in his Histoire des Sciences 
et des Savants; that all the important "institutions," including the learned 
professions and the sciences, have, as Spencer has shown, developed out of 
"ecclesiastical institutions," and owe their existence and advanced modern 
character to that typical "leisure class," the priesthood, given over to 
"vicarious leisure" and "devout observances;" that no class and no human being, 
as the labor reformers so justly insist, can do any high intellectual work, or 
even cultivate the mind, without a certain amount of leisure and respite from 
incessant toil. Our author might, it would seem to some, have at least dwelt 
upon these well-known and universally admitted facts relating directly to the 
leisure class. But, in the first place, he is not engaged in explaining the 
intellectual and moral progress of the world, and, in the second place, these 
facts are too well known to need restatement, and he seems to have no taste for 
hackneyed topics. Such facts are not opposed to anything he says, but are simply 
also true. They are patent, while what he tells us is latent, and he chose 
between the two classes of subjects, telling us a good many things that we did 
not know before instead of telling us so much that we did know. In the third 
place, and principally, his point of view is strictly economic, and he deals 
with a subject within his own specialty, and has not seen fit to branch out into 
wider fields, as economic writers are so much in the habit of doing. Ne sutor 
ultra crepidam.
In a word, our author is dealing with the question of wealth, and his whole 
treatise is confined to the "pecuniary" aspect. He finds that everything has a 
pecuniary value, which has little to do with its intrinsic or rational value; 
that this pecuniary value has grown out of a long series of events in human 
history leading back to the age of barbarism. It is a typical case of 
conventional ideas as distinguished from rational ideas. It can only be made to 
seem rational when we [832] know and can trace its history, and see how, under 
all the circumstances, it could not have been otherwise. Pecuniary value is the 
result of natural causation, like everything else, but the series of terms 
consists of a long winding labyrinth of causes and effects that have ultimately 
produced something which, looked at directly, appears irrational and absurd. In 
this it is no exception to the general law of survivals in ethnology. Every 
lawyer knows what a legal fiction is, but most of them are mistaken in imagining 
that only advanced races are capable of creating such fictions. The study of 
ethnology shows that early institutions are a mass of fictions. The savage is 
more logical than the civilized man. Analyze the couvade, considered as the 
fiction by which the matriarchal was transformed into the patriarchal system 
without a break in the chain of logic.
Pecuniary value, as distinguished from intrinsic value, is a survival, and it 
has probably never before been so well traced out. Here are a few of the steps, 
but the book must be read to see them all and how they are connected: As soon as 
property became recognized as the thing that chiefly insures the satisfaction of 
desire, the "law of acquisition" went into effect, and thenceforth the problem 
was how to acquire the most with the least effort - not how to produce the most. 
The "east effort" part of the formula lies at the foundation of the author's 
distinction between "industry and exploit." Exploit is comparatively easy. 
Industry becomes synonymous with drudgery. The love of activity, i.e., the 
actual pleasure in the exercise of the faculties, which is the essence of the 
"instinct of workmanship," could scarcely be eliminated, and "leisure" is by no 
means incompatible with activity. But excessive activity - the prolonged and 
laborious exertion required for the constant re-production of the objects of 
consumption - is essentially irksome and has always been avoided when possible. 
But these objects must be produced in order that their consumption may be 
enjoyed, and the only way to possess them without producing them is to make 
others produce them. Any power to do this is immediately exercised, and as 
things have been constituted in the history of mankind, this has taken the form 
of creating a dependent industrial class and an independent leisure class. The 
simplest form of this was slavery, and, as the author shows, the first slaves 
were women; afterward captives were made slaves; and finally all were enslaved 
but the few having privilege and power. Extensive modification of this normal 
state, of course, took place with time.
Now, the most natural thing in the world is that these two sets of persons 
should form two great classes totally unlike in almost every [833] respect. The 
dependent class is low, debased, degraded. The independent class is high, noble, 
exalted. This is not merely the judgment of the higher class, but also that of 
the lower. It is the universally recognized relation and constitutes what is 
called the régime of status. All the occupations of the dependent class are, in 
our author's happy phrase, "humilific," and all the occupations in which the 
independent class can engage must be "honorific." These occupations must not 
cross each other. They must be wholly different. The humilific occupations are 
all industrial, productive. Therefore the leisure class must pursue no 
industrial or productive occupations under pain of being suspected of 
dependence. The humilific occupations are the only ones that are "useful" in the 
economic sense. Therefore no member of the leisure class may do anything useful. 
The leisure class derive pleasure from the exercise of their faculties, but such 
exercise must involve no "utility," and must be characterized by "futility." 
There are certain directions in which the pleasures of activity may be indulged 
without the suspicion of dependence or necessity. Among these purely futile 
occupations we find war, the chase, gaining, politics, ruling, religious 
observances, etc. Then there are many incidental ways in which the leisure 
class, when in full power, are able to enjoy themselves. Thus it is said that a 
common amusement of the Roman nobles was to knock down a plebeian and then hand 
over a sesterce, which was the amount of the fine fixed by law for such 
offenses; and the idea of "fun" that the young British gentry entertained in the 
sixteenth century was to disfigure the faces of the poor they met in the streets 
by means of a sharp-pointed cane that they carried for such purposes. Everything 
done must be in the nature of sport, nothing must have the character of work. 
The surplus energy must express itself in wholly non-industrial and absolutely 
parasitic ways, otherwise there is loss of caste.
The above may give some idea of the general nature of the fundamental antithesis 
that sprang up naturally, as shown, and has persisted even down to our own 
times. The distinction has been characterized as "invidious," and this word has 
been criticised as imputing blameworthy motives. But it is used in a literal 
sense, as that which has envy at its root, for not only does the industrial 
class envy the leisure class, but every member of the leisure class is 
perpetually striving to gain the envy of others of that class. Though all the 
members of the leisure class are exempt from drudgery, they are by no means all 
equal in their "ability to pay," and, as there is no limit to the possibility of 
[834] conspicuous futile consumption, no one ever has as much as he wants in 
order to outdo and eclipse his rivals. There is thus brought about, not only a 
hierarchy of wealth, but a perpetual scramble to excel one another. Wealth 
becomes the basis of esteem. The standard is wholly pecuniary. Not only must 
wealth be possessed, but there must be a show of its possession. It must be made 
obvious to all that there is an inexhaustible reserve. Hence leisure must be 
made conspicuous by "conspicuous consumption" and "conspicuous waste." If only 
enough persons and the right persons could see it and know it, it would be 
highly honorific to light a cigar occasionally with a thousand dollar bill. A 
man must not limit his consumption to himself and his family. He must live in a 
palace many times larger than he can possibly fill, and have a large retinue of 
servants and retainers, ostensibly to minister to his wants, but really to make 
clear his ability to pay.
From this arises the important principle of "vicarious leisure" and "vicarious 
consumption." Most of these servants must also be exempt from any productive 
work, and the women of his household must be absolutely non-productive and 
inactive. In the modern system of semi-industrial and quasi-predatory 
exploitation by the bourgeoisie the "captain of industry" must manage his 
business, and therefore seem to be doing something, mayhap something useful, but 
appearances must be kept up as in the feudal manor, and upon his wife devolves 
the "performance of leisure" and the display of her husband's ability to pay for 
useless things. He confers on her a vicarious leisure, and in dress and social 
appointments she is able to show his ability to consume and to waste to any 
required extent.
It will be seen that it is throughout the application of the fundamental maxim 
of "political economy" - the greatest gain for the least effort. But as effort 
is itself agreeable, the effort meant is only industrial, productive, useful 
effort. Primarily war and the chase were the principal honorific employments, 
growing out of the antecedent state in which both were more or less productive. 
War for booty gave way to war for captives, i.e., slaves to do the productive 
work, and ultimately the chase entirely lost its productive value and was 
indulged in merely for sport. Witness the contempt in our day for the poacher 
and the "pot-hunter." At first all exploit was predatory; it has now become what 
our author aptly calls "quasi-predatory." There is no more regard for real 
justice or right now than then, but the exploitation must conform to laws made 
by the exploiting class, and so have a show of justice. The purpose is to 
acquire at all hazards, but it is not enough [835] to say that this must be done 
irrespective of whether anything is produced or not. All acquisition must be 
non-productive under pain of failing out of the leisure class.
No biologist can fail to observe parallels in the organic world to many of the 
facts set forth in this book. Space forbids their enumeration, but one can 
scarcely refrain from noting among nature's many wasteful ways the phenomena of 
secondary sexual characters, typified by the antlers of the stag and the gaudy 
tail of the peacock. These may be compared to wasteful human fashions, such as 
are enumerated in the chapter on "Pecuniary Canons of Taste." The principal 
difference is that nature, in producing these useless and cumbersome organs, has 
really given them a high degree of intrinsic beauty, even as judged by human 
tastes, while the products of human fashion, based on the canon of "pecuniary 
beauty," or costliness, are useless impediments to activity without the 
slightest claim upon any rational standard of taste.
The author's theory of why fashions change is ingenious, and must be largely 
true. The ugliness caused by their superfluous cost renders them intolerable to 
behold for any great length of time, so that a change is demanded by the 
aesthetic sense even of the leisure class; but the new ones can be no better, 
because they, too, must have these marks of "reputable futility" and 
"conspicuous waste," that are necessarily offensive to taste, which is based on 
the instinct of workmanship. They must therefore also soon give way to others no 
better than they, and so on indefinitely. It is a perpetual conflict between 
pecuniary beauty and rational beauty, which are incompatible, but in which the 
former always prevails, and all the latter can do is to condemn the product and 
compel the victor to bring on another.
The genesis of a great number of institutions, customs, practices, and beliefs, 
is worked out in the book, and their barbaric origin clearly shown. It would be 
useless to attempt their enumeration here, and only a few of the most curious 
can be named, such as the exemption of women from labor (vicarious leisure); 
inebriacy and dissipation; costly and unaesthetic decoration; the non-punishment 
of crime when on a large scale; religious ceremonial evolutions recalling the 
terpsichorean stage or dance; the higher learning, or "classicism;" preference 
for inferior hand-made over superior machine-made goods; love of archaism in 
general; the respectability of conservatism; the conservatism and degeneracy of 
the higher institutions of learning; patriotism, dueling, snobbery; English 
saddles, walking sticks; athletic sports, college fraternities, the "cap and 
gown," etc., etc.
[836] The author has certainly handled the English language with consummate 
skill, and, notwithstanding his indictment of "classicism," he displays no mean 
acquaintance with the classics. The book abounds in terse expressions, sharp 
antitheses, and quaint, but happy phrases. Some of these have been interpreted 
as irony and satire, but, as said above, this is the work of the critics 
themselves. The language is plain and unmistakable, as it should be, but the 
style is the farthest removed possible from either advocacy or vituperation, and 
the language, to use the author's own words, is "morally colorless." Some of it, 
if it is not classical, is likely to become so. His general terminology has 
already been used to a considerable extent in this review, the peculiar terms 
and expressions being put in quotation marks. Many others might be given if 
space permitted, such, for example, as "reputably wasteful expenditure," or 
"reputable waste," "reputable futility," and "pecuniary reputability;" and he 
speaks of certain things that have "advantages in the way of uselessness." On 
the other hand, we have such expressions as "vulgarly useful occupations," 
"vulgar effectiveness," and the "taint of usefulness." Then we have the 
"predatory animus,"' "quasi-predatory methods," "predatory fraud," "predatory 
parasitism," and "parasitic predation." Many incidental expressions are 
noteworthy, such as the "skilled and graded inebriety and perfunctory dueling"' 
of the German students, and his statement that the "higher learning" chiefly 
confers a "knowledge of the unknowable." He says that the "exaltation of the 
defective "and admiration for "painstaking crudeness" and "elaborate ineptitude" 
are characteristics of "pecuniary standards of taste." And anyone who has noted 
how all athletic sports degenerate and become restricted to a few professionals 
will appreciate his remark that "the relation of football to physical culture is 
much the same as that of the bull fight to agriculture."
As has already been seen, the two great social classes are characterized by an 
assortment of sharply contrasted words and phrases, and not only their 
occupations, but their underlying instincts, are clearly marked off by such 
expressions as the "instinct of sportsmanship" and the "instinct of 
workmanship;" "exploit and industry," or "exploit and drudgery;" "honorific and 
humilific" occupations, and "'perfunctory and proficuous" activities, all 
forming the primary contrast between "futility and utility." In each of these 
pairs the first belongs to the leisure class and represents the superior fitness 
to survive in human society. The leisure class constitutes the biologically 
fittest, the socially best, the aristocracy.
[837] Of the general make-up of the book, as of all that issue from that well-
known house, there is nothing to be said but praise, unless it be to note the 
retention of the superfluous u in such words as "honour," "favour," "colour," 
etc. To speak of our American "Labour Day" is a clear case of "archaism" and 
"conspicuous waste," and might be cited in defense of the main thesis of the 
book.
LESTER F. WARD.
WASHINGTON, D. C.